Lisbon is one of the last cities in Europe that has vast extensions of self-built houses: bairros de barracas, constantly subject to destructive planning moved by public administration and private investors.

Two Lisbons live together in the same place, and represent two different urban imaginaries: the Marchas dos Santos populars is an effort to bring back to life the impossible memory, of the organic unity lost in some faraway past, before the 'Pombaline Split', when all Lisbon was bairrista.